Buzzword Books - unusual, intriguing, intelligent, perceptive

Tuesday, 8 January 2013

Buddhism, Vedanta, Sufism, Christianity, Taoism, the Gurdjieff Work, Zen... What is the hidden secret behind all the world's great teachings and religions?

Most religions tell you what to do but not how to
do it. Because, over the ages, the inner knowledge they once had and understood
has been forgotten, distorted or conveniently supressed. John Alexandra
strips the mould, dogma and obfuscation from the great sources of spiritual
insight - and uses two in particular - the Gurdjieff Work and Zen - to open the
frontiers to unitary knowledge in a profoundly simple and genuine way.

Author, John Alexandra, has studied with both the Zen
and Gurdjieff traditions and is an expert on comparative religion. His intention
here is to synthesize both eastern and western approaches for sincere minds who
have always been troubled by the apparent differences between them. This
deceptively simple book addresses the heart of the seeker's confusion then
disinters the profound truth behind all systems of transformation. We thought you might like to read the introduction from this revealing study:

Introduction'There is no solution. Because there is no
problem.'Marcel Duchamp 'Let nowhere abide and generate the
Mind.'Diamond Sutra'Why do you prate of God? Don't you know
that whatever you say of him is untrue?'Meister Eckhart

''To know means to know all.To know a part of something means
not to know.It is not difficult to know all, because in order to know
allone has to know very little.But in order to know that little, one has
to know pretty much.'G. I. Gurdjieff

It can take
a lifetime to understand that little - to realise a few simple things.
What is the nature of reality? And can it be directly known? Through the ages,
mystics have said that it can. Although their experiences are identical, because
Unity is one, their expressions for it are myriad, because truth can't be
defined in words. And so all such expressions attempt to describe the same
thing. The Cloud of Unknowing. The Unmoved Mover who moves all
things. The Void. The Silence. The Stillness. The
Original Face. The Absolute. The Great Mind. The Now.
Intrinsic Being. The I AM... And can we flawed, undisciplined beings
ever aspire to know this thing - not philosophically but organically. Can we
know it with certainty - as fact? Through the ages, there are always people
who preserve the approach to unitive knowledge - people in touch with more than
philosophy or belief. But even if we can find them, we won't understand them.
Because, without a long and difficult apprenticeship, truth appears as stupidity
or paradox. For instance:

'Passing away is the essence of
abiding.'

Or: 'Eternity is no other than this instant.'

To a
rational mind, this is nonsense because rationality is too blunt an instrument
to receive such perceptions, even if we are as brilliant as Heidegger, who came
up with the interesting question: 'Why is there anything, rather than
nothing?' 'The real is simple,' we were told. 'It is you who are
complicated.' How, then, can the complex understand the profoundly simple?
While great spiritual traditions remain as fixtures in time, their beliefs
are passed down in increasingly distorted forms. And belief, at best, is a
comfort or defencenot a fact. Inevitably, the techniques of their founders
enter the marketplace - mostly in a form so warped or weakened that they do
little but mislead. Many Masters have declared that, three generations
from the source, distortions and ignorance are assured. When the outer aspect of
a revelation, degraded to mere information, filters into general life it becomes
useless for serious study. Zen, Taoist and Vedantic sages had no time for
belief, only facts. And to wake people from the dream we call our lives, they
used practical means - such as self-inquiry and the study of attention. You'll
find the pith of their methods here. All a genuine teacher can do is try to get
people to see what is in them. But to see ourselves is the thing we cannot
face.Robbie Burns put it aptly:

'O wad some Power the giftie gie
us,To see oursels as ithers see us. It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.'

We cannot see ourselves without the image unless
we have a science of Being. Yet even in places where such knowledge is
preserved, most students remain followers, staring up at their gurus or down at
their books without perceiving what is in front of them. And if, by chance, they
discover a shred of truth, they preserve it like a pressed flower - to comfort
themselves or feel specialinstead of discarding it and going on. Because
the price of contacting reality is everything we are or possess. We were
taught that we need to recreate what we have learned - that to parrot it
verbatim shows little has been understood. To effectively transmit anything one
needs to BE what one knows. Unless a teaching is embodied it cannot effectively
be passed on, as the understanding is unitive - not mental but organic. As the
Baul, Shri Anirvan, beautifully said: 'One must know how to make use of the
force and grandeur of philosophy, but in the heart, know how to feed oneself on
radiant beauty alone.' So can this body - this organ of perceptionconnect
directly with the universe? Is something so outlandish possible? This book
attempts to be a touchstone. But that doesn't make it accessible. Still,
as inner teachings spread like pollen across the West and certain concepts
become more available, if you have assimilated some of them you could find
direction here. What follows is based on a lifetime of work in esoteric
groups. Specific advice is omitted because it relies on oral transmission.